


we will walk in the sun.

by outpastthemoat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s09e10 Road Trip, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-17
Updated: 2014-01-17
Packaged: 2018-01-09 01:38:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1139916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/pseuds/outpastthemoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas steals a Continental. 9x10 coda.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we will walk in the sun.

Castiel circles around the parking lot of a nearby gas station, looking at the cars.  This is what he knows: he needs to get to Dean.  He is aware that acquiring a car is the quickest means to that end.  He knows, thanks to Dean, that hot-wiring is a necessary evil in circumstances such as these.  He also knows that on occasion, circumstances will sometimes conspire to work in his favor.

He keeps his eyes on the car parked in front of the gas station, the one with the keys in the ignition and the engine running noisily and the driver’s side door left open and whose owner is vanishing inside the service station.    

He  _likes_ it.

The car is a pleasant shade of tan.  Very comfortable, he thinks.  One of the things that had taken some getting used to, as a human, had been colors; staring at purple or orange or anything in a shade of neon had required a period of adjustment before he could really get to used to them.  Tan is nice, he thinks.  Tan is familiar.  Tan is soothing, in a way that he only really can find in certain shades of gray, or white, or green.  The car seems to be in good condition.  Dean has told him, in the past, that if you are going to go about stealing a car, don’t fucking skimp. 

The car, he notices, is a Continental.  

He sidles up to the Continental.  This is an older car, Castiel notes.  He knows how Dean feels about older cars.  He suspects he feels the same.  He likes it very much when his opinions and Dean’s match up.  He appreciatively pats the Continental on the hood, the way he’s seen Dean do.  He knows that with certain things, like feral cats and wild dogs, an open palm is the mark of good intentions.  He assures the Continental that he has nothing but good intentions.  He slides smoothly into the driver’s seat and closes the door, takes the Continental out of park and glides serenely out of the gas station parking lot.

He gets on the interstate and fixes a course straight towards Dean.

After a while, he turns the buttons on the dash, and sounds spill out of the speakers. The sound rattles the windows and the speakers and the cracks on the dashboard; the low, heavy rhythmic beats jar unevenly against the rhythm of his vessel’s pulse.  It’s not unpleasant.  He turns up the volume.  He listens closely and decides that it’s music.  Not the kind Dean listens to.  It’s much more exciting.  He decides he likes that, too. It makes  _things_ jump around inside his chest.  It makes him want to drive faster.  So he does.

He makes polite conversation with the Continental.  Yes, he tells it, we are headed in the right direction.  We are going home.  To Dean.  Dean, he stresses to the Continental, has asked for him.  This is where he’s supposed to be, he knows.  Headed towards Dean.

He thinks something silly, after a while.  He thinks that if the Continental was his car, he might want to give it a name.  Like Dean’s car.  He thinks about it, for a while.  He picks out a name.  He thinks that if this car belonged to him, he would call it  _Honey_.  He thinks about telling Dean that, then reconsiders.  Dean would probably make that snorting noise he makes sometimes, when he is trying to contain his laughter, but not trying particularly hard.  He decides to keep that thought to himself.

He drives for two hours, forty-five minutes, until his internal navigation system towards Dean becomes at odds with the United States interstate system.  He slows down the Continental with a certain frustration.  He knows exactly how to get to Dean: only there seems to be twenty acres of farmland where there ought to be a road.  He pulls over to the side of the road and stops the car. 

He searches through the Continental and finds things.  He finds gas receipts and old tickets under the seats. Also a box of slightly stale potato chips, spilling out on the floorboards.  Also a battered map of U.S. highways and interstates, which he spreads out across his lap and the passenger seat and uses to synchronize his sense of direction with highways and non-toll roads. 

He climbs out and opens the trunk, just because he wants to know what’s inside. There isn’t much, to his disappointment.  A beer cooler, empty, and a duffel bag, full.  The duffel bag contains three passports, all with the same headshot featuring an older man with a sagging face and fading brown hair, but with differing names, a toothbrush, a tan coat.

He pulls out the coat with a sudden feeling of familiarity.  It looks almost like his old coat.  Well. Not his.  But the one he used to wear, anyway. He puts on the coat and shrugs his shoulders and suddenly feels much more comfortable than he has since before he tipped back another angel’s head and slit his throat.  He finds a small silver watch in one of the side pockets.  The battery has worn down.  The time is not correct.  He tries it on anyway.  He buckles the watch around his left wrist, the round face twisted to rest on the underside of his wrist.  This is not how Dean wears his watch, but it is the way Castiel has seen watches being worn on the men who came through the Gas N’ Sip. 

He gets back in the driver’s seat and pulls back on the road.  It’s interesting. He has never driven a car before.  He thinks he likes it.  He rolls down the driver’s side window and lets his left arm rest there, the way he’s seen others drive.  He adjusts his leg until his knee is propped up against the door, too.  This is something he’s seen Dean do as well.  He feels _great._ The music blasts out from his open window.  The late afternoon sun is glinting off his watch, on the steering wheel, on the dash.  He watches the flash of light, mesmerized, as it hits the rearview mirror, the passenger side mirror, until the Honda behind him honks three times in a row.  The noise shakes him up.  He tears his eyes away from the flashing light and glances back at the road.  The Continental is sliding back and forth across the lines.  He adjusts the car accordingly, and the Honda passes him on the left.  He waves his fingers as the Honda merges back into the lane ahead of him.  The driver waves one of his fingers, too.  He takes off the watch with a feeling of regret.

He stops once again, to park at a gas station and find a payphone.  He calls Dean’s number, but no one picks up.  He starts up the car, and a light on his dash lights up red.  He pulls out of the parking lot and gets back on the interstate and rummages through the glove box one-handedly until he finds a band-aid, which he uses to cover the steady red light.  It’s distracting in the same way the watch had been, or the way he finds his attention falling away and focusing narrowly on certain small things, movements without meaning; the folds and wrinkles on Dean’s shirt, or the sound of a wind coming up suddenly to rattle the windows at Bobby’s house. 

He turns off the interstate when he gets to Lebanon, and drives slowly through a stretch of strip malls and gas stations and fast food.  His sense of direction and the map both tell him he isn’t far from the bunker, and he thinks:  _Dean_.  Dean had called him.  Dean had wanted him to come.  He might not belong there, but now, at least, he is an invited guest and not a struggling man desperate to be somewhere more familiar.  He is thinking of Dean and that desperate man and of how his new coat fits uncomfortably narrow around his shoulders when the Continental makes a strange, choking new sound and slowly rolls to a stop in front of a row of houses.

He turns the engine off, thoughtfully, and then turns it back on.  The engine makes an anguished noise.  It keeps making the noise until he turns the key round again, and cuts it off.  

He gets out of the Continental and closes the door.  He walks around and checks the locks on the doors and puts the keys in his coat pocket.  He tells the Continental, “I’ll be back.”  

He heads towards Dean.


End file.
